Election 2012

​Politics have always been an extreme controversy throughout United States history. From the days of the American Revolution, there have always been political parties of which were complete opposites and fought over everything. The sign of political parties was the Loyalists and the Patriots. Loyalists believed their best interests were to stay true to the crown while Patriots believed in the idea of democracy and having freedoms that the British crown did not provide. These two parties were the roots for political parties thereafter. Political parties have been and will always be the root of controversy between fellow Americans.

After the intense American Revolution, the failure of The Articles of Confederation, and the signing of The Constitution, the first real political parties were formed and known as the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans. The era of these two political parties started in the 1790s after the signing of the Constitution until the 1820s. By 1796, we had the first partisan race for presidency. At this time, a single ballot where the one with the highest Electoral College total would be President and the runner-up would be the Vice-President chose the President and Vice-President. This caused the election of 1796 to end in a Federalist President, John Adams, and a Democratic-Republican Vice-President, Thomas Jefferson (www.cas.unt.edu). The Federalist Party was a party whose main points were that they favored a strong central government, “loose interpretations of the constitution, and favored close ties with Britain. Democratic-Republicans were the exact opposites. Their main points consisted of an emphasis on state rights, “strict” interpretations of the Constitution, and a foreign policy that favored France. Although the political parties of today are not exact replicas of these first two dominant parties, the Federalist and the Democratic-Republican parties were the roots of all political parties that are to appear throughout United...